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“Remember Who You Are:” the British Kindertransports of World War II

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“Remember Who You Are:” the British Kindertransports of World War II “Remember Who You Are:” The British Kindertransports of World War II Undergraduate Research Thesis Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with honors research distinction in History in the undergraduate colleges of The Ohio State University by Emily Grucza The Ohio State University December 2017 Project Advisors: Professor Birgitte Søland, Department of History and Professor David Steigerwald, Department of History Grucza 2 I would like to thank Professor Steigerwald and Professor Søland for their constant support and critiques during the past two semesters. I would also like to thank the Dr. John T. von der Heide Scholarship family, the OSU Department of History, and the OSU Honors Program. Due to their financial support, I was able to visit London to access the Association of Jewish Refugees: Refugee Voices Collection and other resources to enrich my thesis. Grucza 3 Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………4 Chapter One: Bureaucracy……………………………………………………………………13 Chapter Two: The Kinder and the Transports………………………………………………...27 Chapter Three: The Aftermath and Memory of the War……………………………………...39 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….…54 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………….….59 Grucza 4 Introduction The Kindertransports were, first and foremost, a humanitarian relief effort orchestrated by the Refugee Children’s Movement (RCM) and hardworking individuals in collaboration with the British government in the late 1930s. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the government decided to allow about 10,000 unaccompanied Jewish minors who were living under Nazi control into the United Kingdom without a visa. The transports left from train stations all over Germany, Austria, parts of Czechoslovakia, and parts of Poland and traveled to the Hook of Holland, where the passengers then boarded a boat to Harwich.1 As the situation worsened in the Third Reich, transports began to arrive in Britain every four days.2 The transports continued until Germany invaded Poland and war was officially declared on September 1, 1939. The transports were a difficult and traumatic experience for the Kinder3; boarding the transports was a grim affair because the Nazis insisted that they happened under the cover of darkness to prevent any public sympathy towards the Jews.4 Many of the Kinder were too young to understand what was happening, and some did not realize that their families were not coming with them until they were put on the train alone.5 Their suitcases were often searched by the soldiers accompanying the transports, and if valuables were found, there was a possibility of being kicked off of the transport. Even after their entry into the UK, the children’s lives remained difficult. Several Kinder lived in more than one place in the few years after they arrived on the transports, and most of the 1 Turner, Barry. And the Policeman Smiled. London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 1990, 35. 2 Central British Fund for World Jewish Relief/Refugee Children’s Movement Documents. Wiener Library, London: microfilm, accessed May 2017, 153/9. 3 The terms Kind (singular) and Kinder (plural) refer to the children who travelled on the transports and will be used throughout this paper. These terms are used by the children who were rescued on the transports and are therefore generally accepted. 4 Hodge, Deborah. Rescuing the Children: The Story of the Kindertransport. Toronto: Tundra Books, 2012, 23. 5 Göpfert, Rebekka. “Kindertransport: History and Memory,” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 23, no.1 (2004): 21. Grucza 5 children in the UK who lived in or near the cities, including Kinder, had to be evacuated to the countryside due to the war and bombings. The Refugee Children’s Movement, the organization developed to care for the Kinder, tried to place Kinder in good homes but lacked the funds necessary to check in on every child. The Kinder were also plagued by problems, from homesickness and loneliness to trouble convincing the British government to let them go to school. Although their lives were difficult, they had escaped the Third Reich and the terrible fate that had most likely awaited them through the kindness and dedication of the British government and aid organizations in Britain and Germany. The Kinder never forgot this fact, and all personal interviews that I have read expressed gratitude that they were saved. I will be addressing multiple questions in this paper, including how the Kinder were treated before, during, and after the transports; the psychological affects of the Kindertransports and the subsequent personal and familial issues; and how the Kindertransports has become codified in national and personal memory. I will also be including an overview of the RCM and its role in the transports. I am addressing the question of women’s role in the transports because women are traditionally ignored or not focused on in narratives of war, and as a feminist and a Women’s, Gender, Sexuality Studies minor I want to emphasize one of the projects run by women. The Kindertransports relied heavily on women because they dealt with children; women are usually called upon to care for children, whether or not they are related. I am interested in the Kindertransports because I have been fascinated with World War II for upwards of ten years, and that passion has translated into dedicating my life to historical study. Although much has been written about the Kindertransports, I had not heard of it before starting this project, and I have broad background knowledge in the humanitarian issues of WWII. This topic is not commonly taught in primary and secondary schools, although it is Grucza 6 discussed in introductory Holocaust history courses at some universities, such as the Ohio State University. Although World War II seems far away to young people today, it only ended 72 years ago. Many of the Kinder are still alive, and the reader should care about the Kindertransports because they deal with children who were torn from their families and suffered for the sake of survival. Although there has been recent scholarship on the subject, many of the Kinder were not encouraged to discuss their experiences for many years after the war. Also, discussing their stories and the problems of the transports may inspire conversation about the current pervasive negative attitudes towards refugees, including children, who are trying to escape similarly desperate situations. Furthermore, the transports were a huge humanitarian effort that was organized by passionate people to save children from the worst fates imaginable, and it is an important and controversial piece of Jewish history. The controversy stems from the RCM’s decision to house the Kinder in non-Jewish foster homes, which instigated multiple forced or willing conversions to Christianity and a loss of their Jewish heritage. Hopefully this paper will shed light on how the transports operated and their myriad of effects on a nation and two generations. By the generosity of the OSU Honors Program and other donors, I was able to go to the Wiener Library in London to access the Association of Jewish Refugees: Refugee Voices, an audio-visual Holocaust testimony archive that was commissioned in 2003.6 The archive was created to preserve survivors’ testimonies for future generations with the mindset that we have access to fewer survivors every day. The collection consists of 150 interviews of survivors that were also refugees and 450 hours of fully transcribed video recording; 30 were interviews with 6 "Refugee Voices." Association of Jewish Refugees. 2009. Accessed November 17, 2017. http://www.ajr.org.uk/refugeevoices. Grucza 7 former Kinder about their experiences before, during, and after the transports. This was a valuable resource because it allowed me to read first-person testimonies that were at times deeply personal and therefore allowed me to glimpse into the psychology of the Kinder. Although their experiences happened many years prior to the interviews, the interviewees seemed to try to represent the truth as they remembered it. They appeared to be honest and open about their experiences, and although they expressed gratitude, they also discussed the problems that arose from the transports. At the Wiener Library, I also viewed microfilm of the Central British Fund for World Jewish Relief: Refugee Children’s Movement documents, a primary source that allowed me to understand the inner workings and ideology of the organization. This information can help me understand why the Kinder were treated certain ways and why that treatment could have a negative impact in the long-term. I have many secondary sources about the Kindertransports, with topics ranging from the RCM and the people involved in the organization, to how the transports actually happened, to the psychological issues experienced by several of the Kinder. These sources help me understand and expand on many of the themes that surfaced in the Refugee Voices interviews. I will also be using the play by Diane Samuels, Kindertransport, to illustrate the difficulties that the Kinder experienced in keeping and maintaining familial relationships and dealing with their trauma. This resource is particularly helpful because Samuels interviewed multiple Kinder and created a conglomerate character and storyline that illuminates the experiences and struggles faced on the transports. However, this resource is historical fiction and can only be used as such. While reading the transcripts of the
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